RIM Talks BlackBerry Bold 9900 Design and OS 7

RIM has been on stage for the last hour or so talking BlackBerry OS 7 and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930. Kevin went up and stole my question asking about the battery life on the device with a 1.2Ghz processor which RIM threw back a quasi answer and he didn’t dig further. They just promise that “Battery life is important and considered throughout the whole design process.”

Here are some things that stuck out to me:

It has a Stainless Steel casing instead of the chrome colored case that RIM has used in the past

The back case has a glass epoxy back instead of the traditional leather of the Bold line

Liquid Graphics is part of the latency issues addressed in BB OS7, but it is not the same. Liquid Graphics refers more to the use of OpenGL with hardware acceleration as well as some of the software efforts of TAT.

It was funny I asked the two project managers of the 9900 point blank at their briefing and both said its “the experience and fluid UI”
In short marketing speak for slick UI. You really have to see it to understand. For example, swiping through panels on the homescreen is beautiful and no longer jerky!